Ginnie Springs FL
Thursday afternoon August 8th. It was hotter than hot, 106 degrees in the shade. It was summers peak but school was starting next Monday. We gotta get outa here. But where? How about tubing Helen GA? No the water will be low because it’s a drought. Hmm, where can we go. How about diving? But where? Enter the Internet. Enter keywords “Florida, diving, springs”, springs should be cool right?
After jumping around between a few pages I found what I was looking for, a personal recommendations page. This one was for Ginnie Springs in High Springs FL. Basically the diver said that this spring “had to be done”. And plus it was safe for our skill level, Open Water divers. Okay, we’ll go there.
It was 5:00 PM. I yelled down the hallway. “Elizabeth! Get your dive gear!”
“What? Where are we going?”
“Florida, we’re diving in a spring”
“Okay I am getting my stuff.”
Jane had just gotten back from spending the night at a friends.
“Wait a minute. What’s going on here?
“We’re outta here. It’s too hot. You wanna come?”
“No, I am going to paint.”
“Okay, we’ll be back in a few days”
We mostly had our dive gear ready to go in our dive bags. Elizabeth couldn’t find her hoodie but that didn’t matter as we could get on there. We loaded the van with our stuff and a cooler and were underway by 6:00 PM.
“Where exactly are we going?”
“Ginnie Springs, it’s a fresh water spring we can dive.”
“Is it cold?”
“72 degrees year round. It’ll be nice in this heat.”
We drove the back roads to get to 75 like we always do; of course I got a speeding ticket this time. More like a toll ticket though from the Milner PD. Elizabeth called one of the motels from the list that I printed before we left. They called back and said that they would leave the key under the mat of room number 2. Cool. We have a place to stay.
We go in around 11:00 PM so not too late. The motel is like something out of the 1960’s. The High Springs Country Inn is pleasant to look at from the outside, maybe not so much from the inside. But hey, it’s a dive motel so we got accustomed to it. When I checked in the next morning the sign on the office wall said, “Divers Anchor Here”. It was all divers staying there as far as I could tell. It was $42 per night, so really cheap.
We got up the next morning and went to the Parkview Restaurant for breakfast. Again, really cheap at $3 for eggs, grits, bacon and toast. The milk and orange juice cost more!
After breakfast we headed to downtown High Springs. It’s a small, clean downtown with most of the shops occupied by antique stores and hardware or feed stores. One thing I notice about most of these small downtown’s is that they don’t have the old coffee shop/lunch place anymore. I suppose that there is no money in that type of place. It’s too bad though.
We drove on through and entered Ginnie Springs into the GPS. Six miles down this road we are already on. Okay, let’s go. We drive past small retirement type cracker homes near the town that turn into full blown horse farms as we get away from town. We turn onto the main road to Ginnie and it turns into a dirt road. The GPS is lost be we’re there now anyway.
We pull up to the large wooden barn style check-in building. Inside it’s two stories and all wood, with a lot of dive gear and snack type foods. We check-in and buy Elizabeth a hoodie and rent two tanks. I rent a jacket to go over my 3/2mm wetsuit. Hey, the waters cold. I am used to diving in 85 degree water!
We watched a video about diving in the springs. Evidently we can dive in Ginnie Springs with lights (as Open Water divers) but not the other springs which are for cave divers only. We can dive the other springs, Devil’s Ear and Eye, but only as far as the natural light will take us. We pick up our gear and ask where we’re going.
“Head down that road to the bath house. The spring is right there. If you keep going to the next back house that is where the Devil’s springs are”
Okay, we’re off. It’s still early for the park, which is what this is. It has campsites and a large amount of frontage on the Sante Fe river, as well as 7 springs on the property. So it’s not to busy when we get to the spring head. There is a large deck area with a bench all the way around it as well as picnic tables on grassy/sandy areas around that. There are stairs from the deck going down into the spring.
We can see from the deck that it’s beautiful crystal clear water. We pick up the pace of getting ready. Elizabeth and I playfully argue over who is to carry the tanks to the deck. I carried them partway and when she made fun of me I made her carry them the rest of the way. Later I carried the tanks and Elizabeth carried everything else, for the most part.
I put my toe in the water. Yes, it’s very cool. But it is pretty warm out. Probably already almost 90 degrees at 10:30 in the morning so it feels nice. We’re under the tree’s though so it’s not as hot has it could be.
We geared up on the deck, checking lights (which we can use here), gauges, buckles, etc.. Some kids that are in the area are amazed and ask lots of questions, which we answer. I wonder how many of the kids that we met that day will someday become divers because they saw Elizabeth and I at Ginnie Springs.
The spring is surrounded by woods and feeds that Santa Fe river which it maybe 75 yards to our right. We can see that there is a large shallow area surrounding the spring that we can stand on to get out fins on and get ready. The deeper spring area is about the size of a large swimming pool. We descended into the outer pool. It’s about 9’ deep. Two other divers went in just before us and the have already descended down into the cavern. There are two openings into the cavern. One is wide enough for two divers to go through at the same time. The other is just big enough for one diver.
While Elizabeth and I are looking at the openings some kids are free diving down into the bigger entrance. We back up to give them room to get out. I am sure they didn’t want to get stuck in there or delayed in getting out! Once they were done we ventured inside.
The outer room of the cavern is about the same size as the surface swimming pool sized area, but it’s under an overhang of rock. It’s bright enough to see in there clearly without lights. The roof is slopes down towards the edges like a dome and forms a very narrow crack. There are several large boulders that appear haphazardly placed in the room. In reality they have fallen in place from above and the sides.
We explored the outer room for a while and then headed toward a shelf in the back of the room that was covered in light. Swimming up to the shelf and gripping the edge we could peer over the edge into what appeared to be total blackness. Out stomachs tightened as we looked into the unknown.
Elizbeth and I looked at each other. Elizabeth was already shaking her head. I made a swimming motion with my fingers. Nope, more shaking of the head. We stayed on the lip of the shelf for a few more minutes and we could see the divers turning their lights on and off. They were sitting on a large boulder quite a ways down into the cavern. Okay, let’s go back out and talk about it.
We surfaced in the pool and made our way over to the shallow area. We weren’t sure if this cavern was the one that we were allowed to enter. After a while of talking about it we realized that this was the spring we were allowed to have lights at so we could enter that cavern. We headed back down.
After entering the other cabin we stopped at the ledge again and I tried to get my eyes to adjust to the darkness. We went over the edge. It was dark. We huddled on some rocks just below the overhang. Elizabeth got a few feet from me and I couldn’t see her. I didn’t like it. I went to get her and we held hands and headed back towards the light.
As we went back up we drifted to the right in the current and spotted a rope the led down in the cavern. Ah! That will make it easier. A way in and a way out. We followed the rope down to the middle of the cavern. As we did used our lights and could see then entirety of the cavern, which is called “The Ballroom”. I now why. Our eyes also adjusted to the darkness. It takes about 15 minutes to get your night vision.
We made our way to the bottom of the cavern where the spring head is. There is a steel grate covering the entrance to keep divers from going down into the cave. Not that that would be that easy. There is a freight train of water coming out of the hole. Elizabeth and I held onto the rocks and metal grate and flapped in the liquid breeze at 50’ below the surface. When I let go I rolled over in the sandy bottom that was deposited by the current.
We sat on the rocks that are near the bottom like the divers that we had seen before had done. By turning off our lights we could clearly see the entrance of the cavern like a giant mirror of the surface. With our eyes adjusted to the darkness we could see that the cavern was actually lit up quite well. Along the top of the cavern the reflection from the surface light was clearly visible. We could see where previous divers had left undying statements of love for their significant other.
We’d been in for a total of 45 minutes so we started our ascent using the rope as a guide but by now we didn’t need it as we could easily see where we were headed. We stopped at the entrance of the outer room again for some free divers and the headed out.
“Cool”, when we got to the surface.
“I was nervous at first but once I got used to it I was better.”
“Let’s take a break and get some lunch.”
We need air as well. Elizabeth stayed with our gear while I loaded the tanks in the van and headed up to the lodge. I dropped the tanks for a fill and went over to the Ginnie Springs deli. Elizabeth got a grilled ham and cheese and I got a Philly cheese steak. The tanks were ready when I stopped by and headed back to the spring.
We ate on the deck overlooking Ginnie Spring. It was probably 95 degrees out but it felt fine sitting there eating our lunch. We were under the tree’s and it felt cool near the water. Once in a while I stepped into the pool to cool off.
We had about an 1:15 surface interval so we were good to dive again. We suited up and headed in again, answering questions as we went along. MUCH more comfortable this time going into the cavern. We went down to the grate and then begin exploring the cavern. There was a side room on the left side the Elizabeth went all the way into. We had seen the other divers go in there.
For this dive I was the video man. I go some good shots of Elizabeth checking out the cavern. This time we played with rope that runs down inside the cavern. Elizabeth tried to stand on it in the current. She was moderately successful.
At the top of the cavern there is an opening about the size of a suited diver to get into. It’s about four feet deep going up into the ceiling of the cavern. It’s all scalloped out with nooks and crannies. We looked at it with our flashlights. Elizabeth was trying to show me something in the hat but I couldn’t see it? I kept making the “what?” signal with my hands and she would shine the light onto something. I still couldn’t see it.
We sat on the rocks again with our lights off. I took videos of Elizabeth with the cavern opening in the background. It was cool seeing the shimmering blue surface water with people madly kicking their legs just above and behind Elizabeth.
In the outer room another diver was feeding the fish. They didn’t seem too hungry but he got one of them to eat out of his hand. I stopped to watch and a fish came right up to my mask, about 3 inches away, and just sat there. I just sat there as well. Elizabeth went up to fast and missed the safety stop but I stayed in the outer room for a few minutes looking at the fish as 20’.
When we got out there were a lot more people there. A little girl was amazed by Elizabeth’s dive gear. I playfully splashed people that were slow getting in the water.
“No fair”, they said, “You have a wetsuit on!
“Okay, now what? Wanna check out the Devil’s springs?
“Okay, but I don’t want to dive now,” Elizabeth answered.
“Okay, we’ll just tube the river with our wetsuits on.”
We loaded our gear in the van and headed down the sandy/dusty road to the Devil’s spring system. We heard later that this is the MAJOR party area for the campground, with parties all night long. Later that night we could hear them kicking up a ruckus. When I asked about the busy time of year the camp guys said that there are up to 20,000 people in the campground Memorial Day weekend. Now I know when not to go!
The Devil’s Den springs are probably aptly named. Divers have died there. There are big yellow signs warning of this. We are not diving anyway so we aren’t concerned. Although if we did want to we could dive as far as we had natural light. Not this time. We’ll get cave certified later.
We enter the water at Devil’s Ear, which is a narrow slit in the lagoon that does not look like much. Cave divers are entering and exiting. We just have our wetsuits, fins and mask and snorkel. We free dive the entrance for a minute and then head towards the river.
Right in the river is the entrance to Devil’s Eye (or is this the Ear and the other the Eye). It’s a bigger entrance than the Ear. The current is huge coming out of the western end into the river. Elizabeth and I free dive and hold onto the end and flap in the breeze again.
That’s tiring so we float for a while on the river. It’s about 10-12 feet deep and there are tall strands of grass and what look like Christmas trees covering most of the bottom. Some areas the bottom is sandy. We drift primarily over the sandy areas.
We heard that there is another spring on the other side of the river and kick our way across. The grass is so thick that we can stay on our stomachs and have to roll over and kick on our backs. I don’t think Elizabeth liked that part.
We then had to kick harder to get up to the spring head due to the strong current. There were two horizontal slits at the end of the lagoon where the spring feed the river. At the base of one of them was a large pile of tiny shells. I reached down and scooped up a handful of them. They were all similar, spiral shells about the size of your finger nail, pushed up from who knows where by the rushing spring. I threw them in the water and scared a girl that was snorkeling near us.
Now we are tired from all of the kicking so we just flow on the current out into the river. We don’t have to work at all. There’s lots to see and the visibility is pretty good. We see big mouth bass feeding and Elizabeth spotted a “Paint” turtle with brightly colored edges and yellow lines on it’s face. Once in while I steered into the grass that waved like a ribbon in a flowing breeze and parted the strands to swim through. Very cool.
We didn’t go very far. Just down to where we were before at Ginnie Springs. Some people do that trip as a dive but I think it was fine just to snorkel it.
Now Elizabeth is tired and wants to go back to the motel room. But it’s too early for that and besides the motel room will be hot and boring. I moved the van into the shade and leave it running so that she can rest and be cool. I hung out in the spring and talked to people for a while. Then I did one more dive during which I checked out the little room on the side of the cavern that Elizabeth had gone in.
The entrance is on the far left had side of the cavern and rises back toward the entrance. When you are all the way in you can see that there it actually connects with the outer room. If you took off your tanks (not necessarily a smart thing to do) you could make it through.
Making my way out of the side room the late afternoon light was dancing across the taupe colored walls of the cavern. From my location deep (but high) in the cavern I could see sunlight shining down on the floor of the outer room like several theatrical spots being waved over a spot on a stage. Very cool.
After getting all the gear loaded into the van we headed back to the motel room and cleaned up. Our destination for dinner was directly across the street; Floyd’s Diner. We didn’t have much time to rest, maybe a half hour or so, before we made it over there at around 6:00 so that we would have enough time to pick up our dive tanks for the planned night dive.
It’s a good thing we got there early. Evidently Floyd’s is THE hotspot in High Springs. There was a line out the door when Elizabeth and I walked in. But at the diner style bar there were two seats.
“Wanna sit at the bar”
“Sure”
Again, it’s a good thing that we did. We saw folks waiting to sit as long as it took us to order and eat! Floyd’s has an awesome menu for a dinner. Elizabeth got the Eggplant Three Cheese Ravioli (minus the eggplant) and I got the beef tips over pad thai noodles with veggies. Everything was nice and hot and we had a great view of the kitchen and bustle behind the counter. I noticed for desert that they had Mud River Pie. That sounded great so Elizabeth and I split that and finished the whole thing, whipped cream and all, even though we were already stuffed. If we didn’t have to dive (and Jane was with me) the finishing touch would have been to hang out on the patio and listen to the live music with an after dinner beverage.
We picked up our tanks for the night dive. They weren’t the same numbers on the tanks but I didn’t think anything of it. When we hooked up or regs the tanks were both short on air. They hadn’t closed yet so I went and got the correct tanks. We took our time getting everything setup waiting for the sun to go completely down.
We entered the water at around 9:00 PM. We were very comfortable with the dive for a few reasons. One is that we dove it several times that day (that is actually a requirement for night diving Ginnie) and we had both done several night dives.
It was very cool entering with our lights. There were more fish and different fish that looked like catfish with whiskers, not sure if they were or not. We hung out in the outer room for a while and then made our way down to the spring inlet at the bottom of the cavern. Nice and dark just like you’d expect.
We peered into the inlet again and saw different fish. Then we sat on the boulders and turned our lights off. Way dark. Once my eyes acclimated I could just barely make out the cavern entrance from the lights that are on over the spring. Elizabeth tried to show me the glow sticks in the ceiling hat but I still couldn’t see them!
I did see something that I had not seen on the previous dives though, a memorial plaque placed by a family in honor of their father at the very top of the hat in the corner. It was also easier to see the graffiti that has been scratched into the walls at night. I took a picture of a complete I Love You style heart with the lovers names etched inside.
The best part of the dive ended up being in the very shallowest area surrounding the spring. There were lots of crawfish that we played with by trying to pick them up. They would get nervous and shoot off in reverse by flapping there tails rapidly. Some boys with masks were following us around and it scared them when one of the crawfish came scooting by them very rapidly. We also saw a snapping turtle in a log and lots of different fish, including some eels.
When we got out of the water I pronounced it the best night dive that I had ever done. It would be worth doing again.
